Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) released (10-May-2018) the early edition of its Annual Tourism Monitor 2018, which reviews foreign arrivals and patterns of international travel across Asia Pacific. According to the report:
- The Asia Pacific region received 636 million foreign arrivals in 2017, nearly 35 million more than in 2016;
- Intra regional travel flows remained very strong for most Asia Pacific regions in 2017:
- Almost 94% of foreign arrivals originating from within Asia;
- For the Americas, the intra regional proportion of international travel was 78%;
- The Pacific went against this trend however, with 32% of foreign arrivals originating from within the Pacific region. 53% of foreign arrivals into the Pacific came from Asian origin markets;
- In terms of supplier markets into Asia Pacific, the vast majority of foreign arrivals came from Asia (62%), followed by the Americas (18%) and Europe (12%). The Pacific supplied a little over 2% of the total arrivals into Asia Pacific, followed by Africa with less than 1%. A significant proportion of arrivals (5%) came from unspecified origin markets;
- 14 origin markets each generated in excess of 10 million arrivals into Asia Pacific;
- 11 Asia Pacific destinations each received more than one million additional foreign arrivals between 2016 and 2017. Only four of the 47 destinations covered reported declines in inbound foreign arrival numbers and these ranged from 4000 to nearly 3.9 million arrivals;
- Asia received the majority of these arrivals with a 72% share, followed by the Americas with 24% and the Pacific with the remaining 4%. A similar distribution was seen for the additional volume of foreign arrivals generated into each region between 2016 and 2017. [more - original PR]